Start drinking early next Saturday. ESPN2 will be broadcasting the Pitt-USF game at 11 am on December 4. On the bright side, it’s not like it’s a Pitt home game where we would have to get to Heinz Field at some insane hour.

Coach Walt Harris had his pre-WVU press conference, and Pitt has posted the selected transcript. Some of the comments worth noting not directly related to the actual game planning:

What are your thoughts on the recent fights occurring in sports?

“I talked to the team about that on Sunday. That kind of activity is not part of University of Pittsburgh football and IÂ’m sure it’s not part of West Virginia football. Both teams have good, talented, classy and young football players who work extremely hard. It’s a rivalry and it’s a highly contested game but that’s between the whistles. They’re an outstanding football team and we’re working to be an outstanding football team so we don’t need to get involved in any of that stuff. Football is a great game and we want to respect the game in everything we do. Fighting is not part of football. There’s enough physical activity going on out there and you don’t need to get into a fight.”
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Does the game have a bowl-like atmosphere because youÂ’re playing on Thanksgiving Day?

“I think this [is] better than a bowl atmosphere because this is the regular season and this is a guaranteed game. You have to qualify for bowls. This is a huge game between two great universities that are two of the cornerstones of the Big East Conference. There’s a lot on the game obviously; for pride’s sake, bragging rights and possibly more. We’re going to do everything we can to do the things we need to do in order to be successful.”
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You talked about the implications of this game for the team and players, but what about for yourself?

“I don’t think the season has been about me. I haven’t thought about myself. I’m not trying to be this humanitarian. I have a responsibility to these football players to try and teach them how to play the game. I feel like they have responded to our coaches and have tried hard to get better. That’s tremendously exciting to me regardless of what anyone else says. I’m a coach, I’m a teacher and you can say what you want about all this other stuff. What matters to me is being a good coach. I want to coach our players good. For me to spend my time on anything else is wrong and disloyal to our football players. I’m going to be loyal to the profession of teaching our players. That’s what I like doing and that’s my responsibility.”

Translation from coachspeak, in order. (1) I’ll yank guys from the game if they push it too far. And just wait until the fans try to come into the game liquored up. Security will be tight, tight, tight. (2) Of course it’s bigger than a minor bowl game. It’s the frickin’ Backyard Brawl. The rivalry game for the schools. (3) I’ve been ripped in the press for complaining about lazy players or bad camp attendance; for my agent complaining about a lack of extension; for Joe Paterno refusing to renew the Pitt-Penn State game. You think I’m going to say something now? To you?

Comments about the game:

What makes WVU’s offense difficult to defend?

“They have good players; that always makes a difference. They have a good scheme and they are extremely well coached. At times they make calls off of your defensive alignments after they’ve seen how you’ve aligned. Another factor is that they change their tempo. Some teams they’ll play a normal tempo but against us they play more of a two-minute tempo; they keep going play after play. It restricts your continuity on defense and I think they do a good job of attacking what you do.”

What is the key to stopping their offense? They run the ball well but also pass efficiently.

“You can’t let people do both things to you. You can’t let them run it up and down the field and you can’t let them pass it up and down the field. When we’ve been successful against any offense, we’ve been able to do a good job on the run. We’ve got to concentrate on doing a good job on the run game and trying to hold that back and trying to deal with the passing game secondly. Rasheed has played extremely [well] in this game and it’s a great credit to him and his coach. He’s a threat when he runs, whether it’s a called run or whether he scrambles. He’s extremely fast and he’s the Big East’s all-time leading rushing quarterback; that says quite a bit right there.”
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What are your thoughts of WVU’s special teams? They had some breakdowns versus Boston College.

“I think in special teams one guy getting out position costs ten other guys and a football team, a touchdown or the game. Boston College has an outstanding returner in Blackmon and with him it doesn’t take but a little space and one little breakdown and he’s gone. That’s what happens. It opens up holes for us. If they don’t improve it, we need to take advantage of it. We haven’t had a lot of success in the punt return game and that’s something we need to address.”
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Will tackling be important in this game?

“No question. If we don’t tackle well then we’re in for a long day because we’ll be in a lot of one-on-one tackle situations by nature of their scheme. Our guys have to build a base, get their heads across, move their feet and finish the tackles off.”

Again, to translate. (1) They don’t give our defense a chance to think. Our defensive coordinator doesn’t do well at calling schemes quickly. (2) They actually have a running game and a passing game. They can do both. We can’t. (3) Can we get Wil Blackmon on loan from BC? Our punt returner is lousy. (4) What the @$%^ kind of question is that? When isn’t tackling important?